New book review: “'What’s Truly Mysterious Is Goodness': Héctor Abad’s ASIDE FROM MY HEART, ALL IS WEL," Krista Timeus Cerezo explores how the search for meaning can be undermined by the demands of the religious institutions surrounding us. Read here: wordswithoutborders.org/book-reviews...

Just two more sleeps before I get to discuss Aside From My Heart, All Is Well for the next episode of @onebrightbook.bsky.social. I hope you will listen in once it drops.

“She did not plan; she merely let herself go, and the overwhelming life in her did the rest. It is only when youth is gone and experience has given us a sort of cheap courage that most of us realize how simple such things are." F. Scott Fitzgerald, “First Blood”

So like I picked this up because it was conveniently on my Archipelago subscription pile and it’s the book featured next on the @onebrightbook.bsky.social podcast. Win win.

I’ve never read any of the Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott books. But the AC newsletter in my inbox reminded me of their existence. So here goes.

To be clear

Paul has good taste

Getting ready for the @onebrightbook.bsky.social fun on Sunday. Word is that we might be more than three for this particular conversation.

Left my ideal temperature reading perch for lunch and books. The city is like a ghost town. Few who live in DC wanted to be here for the holiday. But one can hide and read for the moment. These came in through the front door today.

Interesting thread about movie interiors.

Better a Pig: How PORCO ROSSO Dismantles the Aesthetics of Fascism

This was such an excellent episode. I really appreciated how thoughtfully you talked about such a painful subject, and I found the discussion moving and interesting. @ds228.bsky.social @ofbooksandbikes.bsky.social @nonsuchbook.bsky.social

Wow. It just keeps getting better.

I read children’s books all the time. It’s my job. And my joy. But I especially enjoy reading in the summer to select 8 books for 5th grade novel studies that I will do with some awesome kids the next school year. And this lovely has risen to the top of the possible pile. ❤️

‘You cannot possibly explain life in a scientific or positivistic or materialistic way. There’s a space for art, and for literature. It’s the space for religion.’  Merve Emre speaks to Marilynne Robinson and Jon Fosse about religious belief and making art.  granta.com/the-god-dime...

My essay “Hélène Bessette and the Roman du vide" is in the newest edition of Annulet. I am grateful to Editor Alisha Wright for selecting it: annuletpoeticsjournal.com/Carrie-Chapp...

Once the gardening is done…

It’s been almost ten years since I first met Bora Chung, and each of the books I’ve translated for her has been nominated for a prize! I am so grateful to Bora for entrusting me with her work all these years and also to the judges of the Ursula K Le Guin Prize for letting us go out on a high 💜✨

“Can there still, now, be avatars, great teachers pure of heart in whose truth we can believe? I think there are such people, we are unlikely to meet them, but such presences can distribute light, they can prove something: even, in our more closely knitted planet, have influence.” - Iris Murdoch

To live is to love life: Aside from My Heart, All is Well by Héctor Abad, translated by Anne McLean @archipelagobooks.bsky.social roughghosts.com/2026/06/26/t...

And pre-orders are open… www.fulgur.co.uk/books/tarot-...

Reading Our Life in the Forest by Marie Darrieussecq, translated from the French by Penny Hueston.

Starting Dorothea Tanning: A Surrealist World by Alyce Mahon. yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

I talked — at length! — with Julian Lucas of the New Yorker and this is what happened: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

#ClipOfTheDay: In this video, Michael Holtmann, president of the Center for the Art of Translation, and founder Olivia Sears, along with authors and booksellers, talk about the importance of literary translation and the need to build a permanent home for the center in San Francisco. at.pw.org/CAT

Through the mail slot today. I can’t remember the last time I was this excited for summer reading. The current TBR cart is astoundingly yummy.

"Few passages in literature depict the undefeated human spirit with such persuasive force." Brian Patrick Eha on a scene towards the end of Curzio Malaparte's Kaputt when the protagonist, beginning the day in the Regina Coeli prison, ends it in a Neapolitan bomb shelter.

Haven’t changed much since I was a baby.

Through the front door today. Another edition of Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. A commemorative edition from the Book of the Month club celebrating their first book selection in 1926. From a lovely used bookstore.

‘Screwball isn’t a democratic genre. The films indulge the spoiled rich while also laughing at them, and their jokes aren’t a shared language. Not everybody is in on them.’ Ruby Hamilton at the movies. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Just sent all the files for our two Fall titles--both beautiful, slender, debut novels--to the printer. Cannot wait to share them with you all in October!

“In a noisy anxious world, it is the sentence that makes itself heard. A sentence that has no choice but to be haunting and painful.” yalereview.org/article/bess...

“She wanted narrative without conventional plot, poetry without metaphor, testimony without confession. She wanted to document the violence embedded in ordinary life without melodrama or sociology. This refusal to belong cost her dearly.” www.selavy.fr/post/helene-...

Big love for my Dad today. Incredibly smart. Incredibly kind. And funnier with each year that passes. For so many reasons, I know how fortunate I’ve been to have him as a father.

I’ve been waiting to spend some time with this one.

The school year is finally over. The work continues to get more and more challenging. But for right now, summer vacation is here and I have made the all important choice of the first book of the season.

This is a good conversation with Solvej Balle for anyone who’s interested. open.spotify.com/episode/3IlB...

"English teachers have little latitude to prepare the next generation of citizens. Accordingly, as we've learned from conversations w/ dozens of teachers & from the responses to a nat'l survey we conducted in 2024, they are intensely dissatisfied w/ the state of the field" post45.org/2026/06/post...

Returning to my Saturday mystery habit today with this new release from @penzlerpublishers.bsky.social American Mystery Classics line. Sandbar Sinister by Phoebe Atwood Taylor. I enjoyed another of these Asey Mayo/Cape Cod stories some time back and hoping this one delivers at the same level.

Our Alice Munro episode is out! We struggled and did our best with this one. We’d love to know what you think.

It’d mean a lot to me if you gave this one a listen.

Episode 45 is live! On Open Secrets, the book and the concept in Alice Munro's life. We dug deep on this one, guys. onebrightbook.com/2026/06/11/e...

Giving away hundreds of summer reading buddies today on Field Day thanks to the generosity of the Build a Bear Foundation. Joy! Excitement! And a few happy criers!

Sunday lunch and a bookstore run. My preferred weekend activities.

#NYRBWomen26 The Moomin Official YouTube channel is a treasure trove of videos about Tove Jansson! Here are a couple of my favorites: youtu.be/bl8uwLKtMPM?...

My annual “My Dog Ate My Library Book” proposal is up on @donorschoose.bsky.social If you are inclined to save a child from their overdue library books, your support would be greatly appreciated! www.donorschoose.org/project/my-d...